I still clearly recall my first ride in an Austin Champ. It was at Puckapunyal, a military training camp north of Melbourne. It must have been around 1963 and I was at `Pucka' with the Oakleigh Technical School cadet corps. We had earlier marched to a rifle range for our first-ever practice with the famed Enfield .303 rifle. All we could talk about was making sure the rifle was hard against the shoulder to prevent recoil bruising. From memory we also fired a Bren machine gun. In the day of a 15 year-old school student it didn't get better than this.

We were straggling back to our barracks when our commanding officer, one of our teachers, (Mr Maynard I think) drove past and stopped and said to three of us we could get in the back of his four wheel drive to hitch a lift back. I got in and he proceeded to tell us it was an Austin Champ and it had a sealed Rolls-Royce engine. He was chuffed. So were we. It was my first ride in a four wheel drive and my first ride in a convertible. All too quickly we were back, but the memory remains.

The old girl has seen better days. But there was something wonderful about her condition. Phil Lloyd had taken the car to the meet on behalf of the owner who lives in England. The car's build date on the makers plate was noted as 01/04/1955. This apparently signifies the car was brought to Australia new as British models do not have this stamped on the car. The Australian Army bought 400 new and 400 used Austin Champs from the British Army.

In reality the Austin Champ was a name for the civilian variant of the Army vehicle which was called, believe it or not, “Truck,1/4 ton, CT, 4x4, cargo & FFW, Austin Mk. 1.” For obvious reasons the vehicle became known universally as the Champ. The success of the American Jeep in WW2 made it obvious all armies needed a light, all-purpose, go-anywhere, vehicle. After WW2 ended the British Army listed a requirement for such a vehicle. With the Brits already in deep debt to the U.S. It was decided to produce it locally.

Further prototypes of the improved design were built by Wolseley Motor Company and called the `Wolseley Mudlark' and with further development was called the FV1801 (a). Austin was awarded the contract to build 15,000 vehicles and the first production model hit the tar on September 1, 1951. There was no holding back with the choice of engine with the selection going to the B40 four cylinder 2828cc engine sourced from Rolls-Royce. RR also produced the B60 six cylinder and B80 eight for military purposes and they are known as the B-Series engines.

But, there was an underlying problem that had nothing to do with the vehicle's off-road ability. It was expensive. (As if it was ever going to be cheap, sporting a Roller engine!) The cost in 1951 was Aus$2400. At that time you could buy an FJ Holden for $1466. There was another problem for the Austin. Jeep was not the only competitor in this line of business. There was another vehicle going around called a Land Rover. It was also British-made and extremely capable off-road and about half the price. The British Army had been using the Landy since 1949.

No expense was spared in regard to the engine which boasted sealed electrics, cast aluminium cylinder head. Later variants of the engine were similar, but of Austin design, and sourced from the Austin A90. The drive-train was interesting in that there was no reverse gearing in the transmission. Instead reverse was incorporated in the rear differential. This means the Champ has five forward and five reverse gears. There is a lever for two wheel drive and four wheel drive, but no low range transfer box. Instead, first gear is a `crawler' gear, although some say it is slightly too highly geared.